Politics

Amok Mama: Banning the burqa

Jacinta Nandi hates seeing girls in burqas. They look crap. But would banning them in Germany ever work?

I really hate seeing women in burqas. I don’t even like seeing them in headscarves much. You can’t see their hair, they look crap, half their forehead’s missing. Some of the designs are really hideous, like, your nana wouldn’t even use it for a cushion cover. Every time you look at them you feel a bit alien, you feel a bit alienated. And with the burqas, it’s even worse. You feel like you’re in an episode of Doctor Who. I hate it. I really actually hate it. They’re an actual eyesore. It actually hurts your eyes to look at these people. You have to look away.

But we can’t ban them, man. Well, we can, but it’s a totally ridiculous idea. One year, when Rico was little, we saw a woman in Neukölln with a full body veil on. You could see her face, but nothing-else. The thing is, it was turquoise. Normally they go for black, don’t they. So Rico thought she was dressed up for Halloween.

“Monst!” He screamed through the bus. “Monst, monst, monst, monst! Halloween party fun!”

“Rico,” I whispered to him discreetly, “she’s not a monster, she’s just a Muslim.”

So how can we ever ban the burqa, as much as we’d like to? I’m not talking about in the workplace here, I’m not gonna zwing any employer to take on a load of burqa babes, and they don’t anyway. I’m talking about walking down the street, dressed up in a burqa. We could never ban that. It would go against all the basic principles of a free, democratic society, i.e. the freedom to dress up like a twat when you go to a costume party. All the Muslims would have to do is just get imaginative about it – they’d have to pretend to be darleks, or post boxes, or Mr. Blobbys. Or purple dinosaurs. And then what would we say? Oh, no, sorry, you’re not allowed to dress up like a twat because you’re doing it out of religious reasons and not just for a bit of a laugh? It’s an incredibly impractical idea.

PS: This week, go and see Knight and Day, the new Tom Cruise film. God, it’s good. It’s a brilliant film. I actually fancied Tom Cruise in it, well, I wanted to anyway, I was enjoying the film so much. It’s the best film I’ve seen since Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves. It’s totally ace, or awesome, as everyone in Britain, including my stepfather, says now.